Featured Quote:"A believer may pass through much affliction, and yet secure very little blessing from it all. Abiding in Christ is the secret of securing all that the Father meant the chastisement to bring us." - Andrew Murray

Below is a previous post speaking to the catalyst possibility where things change overnight....................

A possible scenario for end times.......

This subject can be very difficult to approach today because there have been so many crazy people claiming when the end of the world would happen. The below scenario reckons on the saints going through the great tribulation. Therefore there is no particular day or hour that is looked for, rather a season, birth pangs if you like. We are told by Jesus that we should be able to discern the signs of the times, not the day nor the hour of His return. In any event, most Peoples of the world and the church have a difficult time imagining a time where Christians would be hunted down and killed for the mere fact of being Christian. They may be able to imagine this in a Muslim world setting, but not in the West. I do not claim that the scenario below is prophetic, I merely wish to show you a logical procession of events that could lead to a world-wide persecution of the true saints.

I think we may all agree that Jesus is coming relatively soon. Where we may disagree is on the subject of rapture. Lets assume there is no rapture and Jesus is coming soon, then the saints will go through the great tribulation. The Scriptures tells us that it will be worse than anything that has ever happened before in history, in fact the Lord must shorten those days for the elects sake or we would all be dead.

Just 70 years ago, in the heart of educated and cultured Europe, in a country that pronounced itself to be Christian, an evil man arose and in six short years, killed six million Jews for the mere fact of being Jewish. He shoved them into gas chambers and then burned them in furnaces, men, woman and children, sparing none. Now this is not some Biblical genocide from the ancient world, this is something that happened just 70 years ago. Now what kind of events would need to unfold for the world to turn on Christians and for their to be a coming together of the world religions into one religion?

Lets say tomorrow there is an attack by Muslim extremists on multiple cities. New York, Washington, London, Paris Rome and Moscow are hit simultaneously with nuclear suitcase bombs. Rather than the three thousand dead of 9/11, there is one hundred thousand dead in each city. The world is repulsed and is brought together because of this great tragedy. Fundamentalists of all stripes are universally condemned and outlawed. To state publicly that there is only one true religion, only one way to heaven, becomes illegal. Such people are denounced as those who have caused all the troubles in the world. They are seen as a cancer on society which society must rid itself of.

So society gives them a chance to renounce such believes. At the same time, the major religions of the world have a summit. Islam, Christianity and the Jewish faith come together for a summit in Rome. Pope Francis leads the summit because he is universally respected. When the meeting is over they announce that they can all trace their roots back to Abraham. That they all worship the same God just in different ways. They announce that there are multiple roads to heaven and that to say otherwise is merely hate speech. They agree to drop Jesus and Mohammed from their literature and only speak in terms of God and His prophets, agreeing to stand upon what they agree on and bringing a historic unity that will usher in a new day, a new order for the world where there is equality for all.

The vast majority of the world hail this and rejoice in it. A small minority resist it and in the shadow of the multiple hundreds and thousands of deaths, the world hates them with a perfect hatred. They hate them more than the Germans hated the Jews. The minority cannot find work and are ultimately arrested for continuing to ” share the Gospel.” While they are a minority, they are still in the millions and camps are set up to imprison them because the prison system cannot contain them. An ever-growing hatred by the general public and resentment that they have to be fed and kept eventually leads to the decision to make it a capital offense punishable by death to be a fundamental Christian.

If I had time and space, I could weave into that scenario the rise of the anti-christ who orchestrates all of those events and performs signs and wonders and miracles in front of the whole world to legitimize what he and the Pope and the religious leaders are teaching and saying about the minority, the remnant who refused to bow their knees to such a world religion. I want you to imagine such a man, before the camera’s of the world, healing a man blind from birth, or raising a man from the dead. The whole world will follow after such a man, and the world religious leaders who are now one would verify that he is in fact, God returned............bro Frank

2016/8/3 8:52

Re: Frank

.Brother that scenario you mentioned may not be too far from reality. As a matter of fact I would say it's very real. We know that 911 came about as a result of meticulous planning. The recent attacks in Europe have come about as a result of meticulous planning. With the increase of Isis and their presence being felt in many nations. It is not far from the realm of possibilities that's such a scenario you put for it can very well come for it. The cities may change. The particulars may change. But all we need is for even one nuclear event to occur in even one city. And that would shock the world.

We need to start having the hard discussions with our families. We need to start speaking of persecution and the realities of imprisonment and martyrdom. I know some in this forum would decry such. They would say that they cannot raise their children on a steady diet of persecution and martyrdom.

Yet our brothers and sisters in restricted nations have these discussions with their families. Those in persecuted nations live with the reality that this could very well be their last day on earth.

There is a video put out by Voice of the Martyrs called Leina's prayer. In that video she describes what she had to go through delay her husband and children down on the altar. Dealing with the reality that maryrdom would come to their home. But she eventually laid everything at the cross. The sister was in Syria.

Some in the Forum will say this is America. It will never happen here. Tell that to the 9 families whose loved ones were martyrded in Charleston, South Carolina last summer. Tell that to the loved ones of the nine students who were martyred in Roseburg Oregon last fall. Tell that to the loved ones of the three believers who lost their lives in the attack in San Bernardino. And then come back on this forum and say that it will never happen here.

I commend Greg for having the hard discussion with his family. I believe others will need to have those hard discussions with their families.

Brothers and sisters we must take up our cross and be dead to the world and alive as unto Christ.

Somply my thoughts from the foot of the cross.

2016/8/3 9:33

JFWMember

Joined: 2011/10/21Posts: 1390Dothan, Alabama

Re: The post election world for Christians

Brothers,For me personally- my post election world is the same as this one....Jesus is still on the throne!all else is, for me, far less a concern or focus.

When people say to me with a sense of urgency or sometimes panic "what are we to do if so in so gets elected? The thought of that scares me!"I smile and confidently proclaim to them, "Jesus is on the throne no matter who sits in the White House and He is our King and our hope, so be of good cheer for He is faithful to those who love Him" So I don't really have a pre or post election world so much as I have a "I was once dead in sin world but now made alive in Christ world"The only election I'm concerned about is making certain I am one of His:)

"I commend Greg for having the hard discussion with his family. I believe others will need to have those hard discussions with their families."

I do too bro Blaine. It is sad that some would accuse him of panic or fear, actually it is quite the opposite. The post election comment from me stands no matter who is elected. To think that whoever is in power makes no difference is naive, the Germans found that out the hard way as did the church in Germany. I am glad that in those days there were people like Bonhoffer who saw it coming and stood ready with a reply and a reaction to what unfolded.

It is always good to be prepared in one's heart and mind and soul and to actually have the kinds of conversations that Greg had with his family, not to instill fear ( typically people who say that are actually fearful themselves and have no desire to face the coming storm) but to instill the spiritual reality that come what may the Lord is on the throne and we may have to give the ultimate sacrifice if called upon but that the Lord will be with us. Jesus always knew that He had come to die on the cross, but He still prepared Himself for it and no where do we see this more than on Gethsemane. If Jesus had to prepare Himself for what was to come, then it might be presumptious and proud of us to think we do not need to prepare ourselves...............bro Frank

2016/8/3 10:04

Re:

Quote:

by JFW on 2016/8/3 9:46:24

Brothers,For me personally- my post election world is the same as this one....Jesus is still on the throne!all else is, for me, far less a concern or focus.

When people say to me with a sense of urgency or sometimes panic "what are we to do if so in so gets elected? The thought of that scares me!"I smile and confidently proclaim to them, "Jesus is on the throne no matter who sits in the White House and He is our King and our hope, so be of good cheer for He is faithful to those who love Him" So I don't really have a pre or post election world so much as I have a "I was once dead in sin world but now made alive in Christ world"The only election I'm concerned about is making certain I am one of His:)

Me too, JFW. Jesus still has my vote. And we can be at peace in the midst of the storm.

2016/8/3 10:09

Re:

When people say to me with a sense of urgency or sometimes panic "what are we to do if so in so gets elected? The thought of that scares me!"I smile and confidently proclaim to them, "Jesus is on the throne no matter who sits in the White House and He is our King and our hope, so be of good cheer for He is faithful to those who love Him" So I don't really have a pre or post election world so much as I have a "I was once dead in sin world but now made alive in Christ world"The only election I'm concerned about is making certain I am one of His:)

Me too, JFW. Jesus still has my vote. And we can be at peace in the midst of the storm.

I raised my kids on the reality of persecution being part of the Christian life. The one who please God rather than men is promised persecution and all my children have already experienced degrees of it with their friends and family. They have been reading Voice of the Martyrs magazine since they were able to read. If a father and mother are not teaching their children about the reality of persecution in the Christian life or showing their children by example how to respond to persecution, then they are doing their children a grave disservice. We see what happened in China where escapism was preached and recently in North Korea and other countries. Jesus clearly did not pluck his people out of the world but He will see His people through it.

It is patently wrong to preach and teach a false security.

2016/8/3 11:19

Re:

Agreed Frank.

It's the usual "either/or" extreme absolutism response that seems to get more and more prevelant. Fact is, "Jesus is on the throne" irrespective of who is in the White House, yes. But Jesus isn't even on the ballet for a 4-year address in Washington DC. Such aetherial avoidance of here and now reality is sometimes almost laughable if not so serious in implication & reality.

No one is saying voting for a specific candidate is a vote against Jesus. If you see "Jesus Christ" on the ballet, please take a picture & post it on the Internet so everyone can see it. Sometimes the metaphorical allegory crowd tends to turn everything into something that's just an atherial allegory. This can actually be avoidance of reality now here on earth too. "Occupy until I come"? Does that mean acting as if time and space and temporal living this side of eternity is insignificant? This is the ancient Christo-Platonic wrong idea mixed from bad theology, philosophy, history & Bible. Augustine & Origen, no surprise here, we're of this school that really can be traced to Plato & Ancient Greek Philosophy. In fact, it was I think Augustine who said (if it wasn't Augustine, it was Origen) that "Plato was as close to a Christian as one could come shy of the Gospel". No surprise to me that coincidentally they were also the fathers of Replacement theology, preteristic eschatological hermeneutics as well. Once someone gets so "metaphorically Christian" in every single discussion or area of anything, then nothing matters. In fact, this Christo-Platonistic worldview is in line with the gnostic view that "the material world is inheritently bad" (not the world the scriptures speaks of as the spirit driving this world, but the actual earth) & "only heaven is good" (not the spirit that reigns there specifically, but the actual materiality of it itself). This is where the escapism, monastic, aetherial metaphoricalism thinking stems from in such circles. Its origins are Greek mythology & its philosophers. I know & understand such thinking derivatives as one who was once a Psychology major & Philosophy Minor.

But yes, these are like many of the aetherial German Christians who thought it didn't matter about Hitler, the Jews or whatever, because after all, "Jesus is on the throne". While that's true, the leader of Germany during the holocaust was actually Adolph Hitler. And He wrongly (demonically) used the scriptures and the false doctrines of Martin Luther concerning the Jews (passed down from Augustine) to carry out this hellish atrocity. I am equipping my children & those I know much better by sharing the Gospel, the Word of God, eternity, etc. with them, while not aetherially ignoring or escaping from the reality of what's going on in the earth even now where we are placed in time. That our response is never like the OT Jewish Zealots of old who took to the arm of the flesh and rose up in violence, but not like the monks who hid in monasteries in caves and never saw the light of day, the realities of the injustices & sins of their society in their day, etc. either. I would not want to be found as the Zealots in spirit (like the sons of thunder) when Christ comes back, but neither would I want to be found as the Essenes either. Hidden up in convents reading the text only and having no saltiness or light for the world around me. Do not misunderstand me to be saying that voting is a Biblical display necessarily of saltiness. Not saying that. But I am saying that necessarily making any activity, decisions, actions, etc. where tremendous sin, wickedness, Justice, etc. are concerned is a decision not to act. The Gospel is preimminenet. But if you think things like Abortion, Child trafficking, Slavery, etc. mean nothing to God or His saints anymore, then you have "spiritualized" Away everything in your Christoplatonism. We can look very spiritual sometimes in this view and quote lots of "verses", but is there really light & salt and truth? Is there really bread from heaven? And is it feeding it to real people here down on the earth? It will get worse. Much worse. I am not a postmillinealist who thinks we will Christianize the earth before Jesus returns. I have an apocalyptic eschatological framework. It's going to keep getting worse gradually & then Christ will return and it will get better! But that doesn't mean we aren't on some levels to "occupy until He comes". What that looks like exactly for each individual is for one to take to the Lord Himself. But the reality of the age to come doesn't change the realness of the reality in this age, & we live in the tension era of one crossing over to the other. Where the kingdom of God is and isn't yet in its final fullness. I hope that makes some sense to somebody? 😊 If we take it all on our shoulders, we will act in the flesh, but if we act as if reality isn't reality, then we are like the German church that "just sang louder" to drown out the reality of the wailing & screaming Jews in the rail cars on the track behind the church on Sunday morning.

2016/8/3 11:24

Re:

Julias writes...........

"It is patently wrong to preach and teach a false security."

Amen to that.............bro Frank

2016/8/3 11:29

Re:

And just FYI to Julius, I was writing my last post before your last post came up. Just wanted you to know that my post wasn't a direct response to your last post. 😊 I thought your last post was quite good too, by the way. And same here, I have been reading stories from VOM, Open Doors, etc. to my kids since they could read (& some before so). God Bless, Jeff

2016/8/3 11:32

Re:

Yep, jeff. We have been shielded in America to a large degree, but our children need full disclosure and so do adults.

This scripture comes to mind:Luke 14:28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Luke 14:29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, ...Luke 14:33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.